The Symbols in Sewing

What I'm listening to: Remember to Breathe (Dashboard Confessional) It turned out the lock down yesterday was only a drill. But I still think it's funny. Anyway, Thanksgiving is coming up (it's tomorrow, actually), so I made three pies this weekend--lemon icebox, pecan and pumpkin. The whole process took roughly five hours. Which is a long time to spend baking pies. I think I'm all pied out, if that's a word. If not, then it should be. I finally sewed up the foot-long hole in my pajama pants that I tore the day I moved here. The act felt extremely symbolic, as if sewing up my pants symbolized my healing and becoming almost myself after the move.

Or maybe I've just spent a little too much time in Honors English, which is far more likely.

Well, are you ready for Part Four of After the Crash? Here it is: Reconstruction It's Saturday again, and I have never once seen David. However, every day, without fail, he speaks to me. Today is no different. "Are you feeling any better?" he asks. "No," I say, honest as always. "That's too bad." "I guess so." He tells me he had surgery today. I tell him I heard him awake from it--he cried out five times. He doesn't say anything and I wonder if I have offended him. After two minutes of decadent silence, I gather the nerve to speak. "Did I offend you? You weren't very loud, you know." "No." He doesn't sound very convincing. I tell him it's very nice what he's doing for me. Again, silence. "I really do appreciate it," I try again. "So would you quit being so boneheaded about it?" "Sorry." I snort and turn over on my bed. And guys think girls are complicated? Reconstruction. R-E-C-O-N-S-T... For some reason, I can't remember how to spell it. I used to be a good speller. Before they invented Spell Check, that is. When laziness has leaked into spelling, you know society is deteriorating. "How do you spell reconstruction?" I ask. He spells it for me. "Why?" he has to ask. "I don't know. We're both having reconstructive surgery." He asks me why I didn't want to know reconstructive, not reconstruction. For once, I have no idea. The curtain is a light, Pepto-Bismolish pink, with small silver rings at the top. If only it didn't remind me so much of medicine, I might actually like it. For the first time in a long time, I begin to hope that I could be reconstructing more than my clavicle.

New Beginnings

What I'm Listening to: The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (The Postal Service) First blog entry of my life: no pressure or anything. I suppose I could say I'm a highschool author. Or maybe that I just moved two thousand miles away from my home less than two months ago. But I guess that's a little generic. So maybe I should start with one of my poems, After the Crash. Maybe it will get you hooked, maybe not. But (of course), I'm only going to publish the first part. Which means you'll have to keep coming back to get the whole story. Enjoy! Snowing Fire My small, white feet are a stark contrast to the smoothed-sandpaper feel of the wet pavement. It's cold, but my shoes lie under several twisted heaps of scrap metal. There's a faint smell of burning rubber in the air--could it be my sneakers? Passerbys, I think idly. Doesn't that sound better than passersby? They are staring. Staring at me. I glance down at my shoulders--and gasp. Intricate web spiderwebs are engraved into my arms and seep through my white T-shirt. Funny. I never felt a thing. "A doctor, a doctor," someone finally says. "Somebody call a doctor." For what? My car? I tell him Band-Aids and a cup of cocoa will suffice. He tells me I'm in shock. That I should lie down. Get something to drink. I can feel my arms now. It's a sort of awful, wonderful feeling--it burns like the pits in Hades, yet it doesn't warm me up. Someone--it is a woman this time--pushes a few pills and a bottle of water at me. I tell her I can take the pain. That I, strangely, want it. An odd, terrible look fills her eyes and she shoves them down my throat. I am lying down now. The gray fluffy plumes of cotton candy loom overhead. The delightful monster. Fifteen minutes later--or sixty, for I have no track of time--and it's snowing. Well, it certainly looks like snow. But the fluffy wads of cotton seem to ignite my veins on fire. I have to clamp a hand over my mouth to restrain crying out. As the ambulance arrives, the clouds don't show a sign of letting up. Good, I think with some surprise. I don't want the miserable rapture to end. Keep on, keep on. Keep on snowing fire.